


Light

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 21:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14145282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: Anders wanders in the darkness and Hawke is light, is light, is light.





	Light

There were too many nights like these, when the Darktown streets were quiet, not with stillness, but with fear - fear of going hungry, of being cold, of being alone. He sits outside his clinic, the center of gravity he orbits his little world around, listening to the mournful whispers that haunt the city streets in the dark. 

The street cats know him, recognize him as one of theirs, sometimes mangy and often half-starved, sneaking and cautious and peering out at the world with too-wary eyes. He’s always good for a meal, he hopes. He shares what he has, what he manages, leaving milk when he can or day old scraps, soothing and petting and getting bit for his efforts.

Sometimes he wonders if it’s worth it. There are nights that he can’t even feed himself, and still...

He shakes his head. It hurts but he’s a  _ healer. _ It’s what he does - take in strays, nurses them back to health, and hopes they find something better than him. 

The calico peeks at him, water hanging in heavy drops on her whiskers. This one has known the streets so long she has their names etched into the pads of her feet, written in her teeth, just like him. He smiles and swears she grins back. 

Bodies shift in the night across Darktown. 

He can feel it in his bones, the toxic stillness. Everyone fights for breath here, forgotten, discarded, scraping for what they can with what they’ve got. He’s the lucky one; it’s a sordid thought that captures him on nightmare-filled nights, when the demons of his dreams haunt him. When thoughts of desperation clutch at him, stealing his breath and weaseling their way to his heart. 

His feet find their way over the mangled, meandering streets, worn boots barely shielding him from the cold cobblestones. He walks for minutes, hours, days, his aching bones pulling him through the darkness. Heavy footfalls send him to the shadows, and his fingers tingle with unspent energy with his every frantic heartbeat. It is too easy to get caught off-guard here, he must not be caught unaware, must not find himself huddled between glinting fists and hard dead-ends. 

His demons haunt him. The winding alleyways buzz with the Calling, Blighted whispers that brush against the edges of his sleep-deprived mind as he pulls himself forward. His stomach knots tighter with each step as he moves further into the town proper, through the dingy, dankness of Lowtown. He wanders past drunken citizens of the streets, warding off the bitter cold with whisky and ale as best they could. His heart breaks for them, slightly, slowly; the poison lies when it promises warmth, when it pulls you into a fitful sleep he would hesitate to call ‘rest’. He knows many of these people, who have just enough to buy a pint but not enough to buy a proper meal, so they fill their bellies with whatever they can get. 

A person can’t fill their belly on pride alone, and even the worst ale is better than an empty stomach. He knows this lesson all too well, had it carved into his bones by bitter nights and the threat of starvation, bile and stomach acid the only things that filled his mouth for long stretches at a time.  

By the time he finds himself outside the rich gardens of Hightown his heart pounds like cannon fire in his chest, deep, rumbling explosions behind his ribs. 

His robes would always stand out like a gangrenous limb here, no matter how nice the fabric, no matter how beautiful and shiny his buckles. He would never be right here, a piece of shrubbery that grows too wildly, not taking to the careful pruning of whatever gardener that set their eyes on him. He pulls his coat closer about his ribs as the clouds rush over the night sky, the dappled moonlight playing over the stone path before him.

His tongue lay dry in his mouth, his throat seizing with terrible dread as he knocks at the door. There was a promise, born of words and frantic embraces too soon ended, that lived on the other side here, one that he could never touch, would never find himself quite worthy of knowing, but there was one place the darkness could never touch him. 

The door opens, and the moonlight casts its soft glow about his face as he steps into the night air.

“Anders,” he breathes. His guarded eyes lose their sharpness and Hawke pulls him into his embrace. 

Lips find questing, desperate lips, breaths mingle, and for a moment the tightness dwindles, and the darkness abates, and Hawke is light, is light, is light. 


End file.
